my first car had a cigarette lighter

 

When my Chevrolet Bel Air was new (1958), it came from the factory with a cigarette lighter and an ashtray. That’s not exactly shocking news, since virtually every car sold in American that year had the same equipment. The 1958 Cadillac Eldorado came standard with 2 cigarette lighters in the front, and 2 more in the back. Air conditioning, however, was an extra cost option. More than 50% of the adult males, and nearly 30% of adult women, smoked cigarettes.

https://www.infoplease.com/math-science/health/substance-abuse/smoking-prevalence-among-us-adults-1955-2013

At this point, you’re probably wonder what made me think about this topic, and the answer is simple.

Robert Mitchum

The same year that my Chevy was sold to its first owner, Robert Mitchum produced, wrote, and starred in a movie titled “Thunder Road”. One of my friends in Wisconsin recently sent me a clip of part of the movie. The story was inspired by a real incident that occurred in 1952, when a driver transporting moonshine crashed and died while being pursued by the police.

 https://historygarage.com/birth-death-automobile-lighter/

If you would like to see the clip that I watched, just click on the link below:

Thunder Road Asheville - YouTube

One thing that caught my attention is that Mitchum used a book of matches to light a cigarette while driving his 1950 Ford, which got me wondering why he simply didn’t use the cigarette lighter, and there IS a logical reason for his actions.

The car did not have one.

So, my curiosity got the best of me, and I tried to find out when cars first came equipped with cigarette letters.

Although the closest patent for the design we’ve come to know hit the patent office in 1919, the first car lighters made an appearance long before the Model T.

The inventor of the electrical cigar lighter, Fredrich Wilhelm, registered his invention in the 1880s. It wasn’t necessarily a car lighter, nor was it for cigarettes. Back then one smoked a pipe or a cigar. It was a stinkier time.

Cigarette smoking didn’t popularize until after the Great War. WWI was when the cigarette companies first put the sticks into rations, triggering a smoking trend and marketing strategy that would stick around for several wars.

In 1919, J.M. Morris registered a design for a spring loaded “electrical lighting device for cigars and the like.” It wasn’t much different than what I had in my high school car, a knob with a heating element on the business end. You would plug it into a 12v socket until the heating element glowed.

Then, in 1956, someone coiled the heating elements, a design patent submitted by L.E. Fenn.

The Fenn design was so popular, it made it into not only cars and trucks as a standard, but boats and general consoles too. You read that right, from cars to consoles.

If you worked someplace, especially a military installation, where they had large equipment for tracking stuff, there was a lighter and an ashtray somewhere on said equipment for tracking stuff.

The cigarette companies made sure of it. They couldn’t put matches or Bic lighters in everyone’s pockets, but they could play Johnny Lighter-seed to the world. Heaven forbid someone would have to search for fire when he wanted to light up.

There were so many lighter sockets, in the 1980s, someone had the bright idea to retrofit and repurpose the lighter socket.

It was the dawn of portable electronic device, but mostly the first car phones. Those sockets put 12v of power right there, no wiring necessary. By that time, cigarettes were getting a bad rap, so many had quit the habit.

That open socket was asking for it.

The crazy demise of the car lighter was a multifaceted attack. First, all those health officials started saying cigarettes caused cancer and heart disease. That got a lot of folks to stop smoking.

Then, portable CD players and cell phones started kicking out the lighters, taking their place. Drivers would move the lighter to the unused ashtray until they would lose the part altogether. Somewhere, L.E. Fenn flipped in his grave.

The car lighter market destabilized so much, it became more costly for manufacturers to install them in cars, pushing the lighter from the standard features category into supplemental one. You had to ask and pay more for a car lighter.

What’s even more ironic, today’s cars, even economy versions, come with more than one socket, but not necessarily a lighter. This is less common outside the United States and Canada, but slowly changing elsewhere.

The car lighter may not be dead yet, but its days are numbered. Even as cigar smoking regains its clout as an acceptable form of smoking, car manufacturers continue to eliminate the coiled car lighter.

Modern cars come with at least one USB port, and at least one socket that could be used to power a cigarette lighter, but you’ll need to go to Walmart, and a few other outlets, if you want to have a cigarette lighter in your vehicle. However, it would be impossible to find a modern car that still had an ashtray.

I sold new and used cars for 7 years, and found that very few of the cars that I took in on trade had been smoked in. The most reliable statistic about smoker’s cars is that are worth, on average, about 9% less than cars that are smoke free.

There are more than 4000 chemicals in secondhand smoke, and nicotine levels are 30 times higher in smoker's cars than ones which are tobacco free. Car dealers use a variety of chemical to remove tobacco smells from cars, but sometime it takes more than one treatment to make the vehicle smell fresh again. Even if people don’t smoke in their cars, its also wise not to transport your dog in the car, since canine scents are also a bit difficult to get rid of.

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/smoking-harmful-to-your-cars-resale-health-25412

By the way, in case you are wondering which other once common features are almost non-existent, consider this:

You can still buy new vehicles with manual windows:

https://www.cars.com/articles/yes-you-can-still-buy-a-new-car-with-manual-windows-

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus

 

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" is a line from an editorial called "Is There a Santa Claus?". The editorial appeared in the September 21, 1897, edition of The (New York) Sun and has since become part of popular Christmas folklore in the United States. It is the most reprinted newspaper editorial in the English language

In 1897, Dr. Philip O'Hanlon, a coroner's assistant on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was asked by his then eight-year-old daughter, Virginia O'Hanlon (1889–1971), whether Santa Claus, a legendary character, really existed. O'Hanlon suggested she write to The Sun, a then prominent New York City newspaper, assuring her that "If you see it in The Sun, it's so. In so doing, Dr. O'Hanlon had unwittingly given one of the paper's editors, Francis Pharcellus Church, an opportunity to rise above the simple question and address the philosophical issues behind it.

Church was a war correspondent during the American Civil War, a time that saw great suffering and a corresponding lack of hope and faith in much of society. Although the paper ran the editorial in the seventh place on the page, below even one on the newly invented "chainless bicycle", it was both noticed and well received by readers. According to an anecdote on the radio program The Rest of the Story, Church was a hardened cynic and an atheist who had little patience for superstitious beliefs, did not want to write the editorial, and refused to allow his name to be attached to the piece. More than a century later it is the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language.

In 1971, after seeing Virginia's obituary in The New York Times, four friends formed a company called Elizabeth Press and published a children's book titled Yes, Virginia that illustrated the editorial and included a brief history of the main characters. Its creators took it to Warner Brothers, who made an Emmy award-winning television show based on the editorial in 1974. The History Channel, in a special that aired on February 21, 2001, noted that Virginia gave the original letter to a granddaughter, who pasted it in a scrapbook. It was feared that the letter was destroyed in a house fire, but 30 years later, it was discovered intact.

A copy of the letter, hand-written by Virginia and believed by her family to be the original, returned to them by the newspaper, was authenticated in 1998 by Kathleen Guzman, an appraiser on the television program Antiques Roadshow. In 2007, the show appraised its value at around $50,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_Virginia,_there_is_a_Santa_Claus

 

For more than 100 years, parents have debated about telling their children that Santa is real. A single mom named Vanessa McGrady wrote into the Washington Post about a week ago about how she handled the situation with her daughter. Here is her answer:

“Santa is real,” I said, reaching for some explanation of why the whole Santa/Tooth Fairy/Easter Bunny charade isn’t actually a lie. “He’s the spirit of generosity. When kids are little, they need a character like him to understand the concept of giving. But now that you’re older, you don’t need him. You even get to be a Santa yourself and give things to other people,” I told her. “So the Easter Bunny is the spirit of renewal and springtime. And the Tooth Fairy is the spirit of your changing body. They may not be actual creatures, but they’re real symbols about important things.

She seemed fine with this and agreed to not tell younger kids who still believe.

The following Christmas came amid a crush of Lands’ End catalogues. We threw our usual party. Santa knocked on the window. He came through the door with a booming “ho, ho, ho!” and made his way to an armchair.

 

Grace looked at me, clearly torn between wanting to believe and wondering if the spirit of generosity would still welcome her into his fold. “Mama?” she said in a small voice, “Is it okay if I still go sit on his lap?”

 

“Yes baby. Go,” I told her. She climbed up and had a whispered conversation with Santa, sitting squarely at the intersection where magic and reality meet.

Since then, we’ve been on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” honor system. She knows in her logical mind that mama brings pants and nearly everything else. Still, I’m certain that she’ll leave out cookies and milk for Santa — just to cover all the bases. Because you never know.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/12/17/santa-is-real/ 

Now that a few lucky members of our society have received the coronavirus vaccine, our society will gradually return to “normal”. One sign of that normality came from overseas, when members of the choir of Notre Dame Cathedral sang inside the medieval Paris landmark for the first time since last year’s devastating fire for a special Christmas Eve concert.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/christmas-eve-concert-held-in-paris-fire-wrecked-notre-dame/2020/12/24/7474e306-4645-11eb-ac2a-3ac0f2b8ceeb_story.html

Accompanied by an acclaimed cellist and a rented organ, the singers performed beneath the cathedral’s stained-glass windows amid the darkened church, which is transitioning from being a precarious hazardous clean-up operation to becoming a massive reconstruction site. The choir initially planned to bring in 20 singers but for safety reasons they were limited to eight.

 

The choir members stood socially distanced to be able to take off their masks — which is required indoors in France to stem the spread of the virus — and sing.

The concert — including “Silent Night” in English and French, “The Hymn of the Angels,” and even “Jingle Bells” — was recorded earlier this month and broadcast just before midnight Thursday. The public was not allowed and isn’t expected to see the insides of Notre Dame until at least 2024. 

It IS true that Christmas this year will be a lot different than the ones we experienced in the past. No visits to the family farm in Wisconsin, no large gatherings in churches, no huge Christmas dinners with family and friends, and no visits with Santa in the malls of America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/on-parenting/christmas-pandemic-parenting-kids-expectations/2020/12/11/c53c747c-34b4-11eb-a997-1f4c53d2a747_story.html

Despite the fact that we won’t have the usual trappings of Christmas this year, we’ll always have memories of our Christmas celebrations of our past – and that’s Christmas to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjdfjrtf1Q&list=RDpFjdfjrtf1Q&start_radio=1

 

the devil made me do it

 

Apart from the Exorcist movie of 1973, exorcism is definitely not a topic that any of us gives much thought to, but the link below provides a look at my brush with the topic in 2014, when I lived in Flagstaff.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-ghost-of-father-karras.html

Believe it or not, the Vatican actually offers classes in Satanism and exorcism, but it’s highly unusual to encounter either of them in our normal lives.

That changed roughly 2 months ago.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has faced several challenges since he became archbishop of San Francisco in 2012. They include a Supreme Court decision nullifying the Defense of Marriage Act that he championed; his failure to extract loyalty oaths on Catholic doctrine in hiring Catholic high school teachers; heavy blowback on his views on homosexuality; and his opposition to restrictions on Catholic worship he calls the work of "secular elites."

But his latest battle is against Satan, who he calls "the evil one." Cordileone performed the rite of exorcism as a response to the removal of statues of Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra at Golden Gate Park June 19, and later at Mission San Rafael, north of San Francisco on Oct. 12.

When the statues toppled, Cordileone sprang into action. Flanked by parishioners, priests and nuns praying the rosary, he conducted exorcisms at both places.

The prelate called the acts blasphemous and sacrilegious. He also demanded that the Marin County district attorney press felony and hate crime charges against the Native women who felled the statues. The district attorney filed felony vandalism but not hate crime charges against five people: Melissa Aguilar, Mayorgi Nadieska Delgadille, Victoria Eva Montano Pena, Moira Van de Walker and Andrew Lester Mendle.

 

https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/san-francisco-archbishops-exorcisms-highlight-controversy-over-serra-conflict

Cordileone, the grandson of an immigrant Sicilian fisherman, received a doctorate in canon law in Rome. He was ordained an auxiliary bishop of his native San Diego in 2002 and later appointed bishop of Oakland in 2009.

The American Catholic hierarchy's support of the Serra canonization in 2015 provoked strong reactions from Native Californians who said that Serra admitted to supervising whippings of their people for minor offenses. They also charge him with founding a mission system whose policies led to the deaths of 150,000 Natives from 1760 to 1834 though mass incarceration, disease and slave-like labor conditions.

Like Christopher Columbus, Father Junipero Serra is a controversial figure to some members of our society. He is considered the founder of the California missions.

Not everyone agrees that the exorcism was a good idea.

"The exorcism was crazy and misleading," said Jesuit Fr. John Coleman, former Casassa professor of social values at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, and associate pastor at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco. "Serra was not an evil man, but he allowed a lot of bad things to happen, and this should be recognized."

A retired priest who ask not to be identified for fear of retaliation from conservative parishioners wrote in an email to NCR: "The recent exploitation of the rites of exorcism at sites where statues of Serra have been desecrated is consummately unwise. More wisdom can be gained from listening to our Native American brothers and sisters for whom Serra is a stumbling block to the church's credibility."

I was dismayed to read about the arson fire that severally damaged the San Gabriel Mission in July, one day before it was scheduled to reopen after an extensive renovation.

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/public-safety/2020/07/12/fire-destroys-much-of-249-year-old-san-gabriel-mission

The only California mission that I have been inside of is Mission San Luis Rey, in Oceanside, California. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1798, and is the largest of the California missions. You can take a tour by clicking on the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FEXJAWJ7y0&t=18s

 As a society, we’ve done a better job of acknowledging the injustices that that were inflicted on Native Americans, but the wrong way to compensate for those injustices is to damage of destroy the other parts of our history – and California  missions should be on the top of that list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Global warming is a hoax!

 

There are a surprising number of people who believe that global warming is a hoax, even though the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world

https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/

Although humans contribute to global warming in a number of ways, the creature shown below is also a major contributor to global warming.

6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from 1.5 billion cows that burp out lots of methane. In addition, a small percentage of methane gas also escapes due to flatulence.

Despite all the warnings about global warming from trusted scientific sources, the person who has done the most to most to raise awareness of global warming is a 17- year old girl from Sweden named Greta Thunberg, who started her silent protest outside the Swedish parliament when she was 15 years old.

The incoming Biden administration will address global warming in a number of ways, one of which is the appointment of John Kerry to the newly created position of climate envoy on the National Security Council.

Kerry helped negotiate the Paris climate agreement, signing it in 2016 with his granddaughter on his lap. Biden has pledged to rejoin the pact after Trump withdrew from it, but Kerry could face skepticism as he seeks to reassert U.S. leadership and gain the trust of other countries for more aggressive climate action.

https://www.npr.org/sections/biden-transition-updates/2020/11/23/938150511/john-kerry-tapped-for-newly-created-role-as-presidential-climate-envoy

One of the most surprising ways to reduce global warming is an ingredient that you would not suspect.

Seaweed.

The red seaweed is called Asparagopsis taxiformis, or A. taxiformis for short. The startup that’s turning it into a supplement for livestock is called Symbrosia. Research has shown that replacing just 0.4% of a cow’s feed with A. taxiformis reduces the amount of methane the cow produces by more than 90%. Methane is 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to contributing to climate change.

Symbrosia uses an on-land aquaculture system to grow the seaweed. They dry the seaweed to preserve it naturally, then turn that into a feed product with the not-so-catchy name of SVD.

Just a sprinkle of the SVD to existing livestock feed and poof: less methane from the cow. Symbrosia was recently selected as part of the 2020 Solver class by MIT Solve, an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. Symbrosia will receive a portion of more than $2 million in prize funding and more opportunities via investors and venture capitalists.

Symbrosia has already received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to analyze the use of its seaweed feed supplement at Z Farms Organic in Dover Plains, New York. A pilot began there in June, testing the seaweed supplement on a commercial grazing system.

The founder of Symbrosia is Alexia Akbay, who lives in Kailua-Kona Hawaii. Akbay, a chemist by training, co-founded Symbrosia about two and a half years ago with Jonathan Simonds.

“All research prior had been in an academic feedlot or controlled dairy setting,” Akbay says. “Meanwhile, the majority of methane emissions in the beef or dairy supply chain come from the grazing cycle — digesting grass is more difficult than corn or soy.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkart/2020/11/21/hawaiian-seaweed-makes-cows-90-less-gassyand-thats-good-for-climate-change/?sh=62b961d15c4b

 Since Hawaiian seaweed is still in short supply, there are a few creative companies who are converting methane gas produced by cows into more environmentally friendly products. Details on that process can be found at the link below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2015/02/oh-poop.html

There are still far too many people who simply aren’t going to believe the truth about global warming, but the more enlightened souls among us are doing something about it.

You've come a long way, baby

In 1908, the New York City Board of Aldermen unanimously passed an ordinance that prohibited smoking by women in public.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_smoking#:~:text=In%201929%20Edward%20Bernays%20decided%20to%20pay%20women,as%20in%20the%20privacy%20of%20their%20own%20homes.

In the early part of the 20th century, the anti-tobacco movement was aimed primarily at women and children. Smoking was considered a dirty habit and smoking by women was seriously frowned upon by society. As the century progressed, so did women's desire for equality.

The suffrage movement gave many women a sense of entitlement and freedom and the tobacco industry took advantage of the marketing opportunity. Tobacco companies began marketing cigarettes to appeal to women during the burgeoning women's movement of the 1920s.

 "Torches of Freedom" was a phrase used to encourage women's smoking by exploiting women's aspirations for a better life during the early twentieth century first-wave feminism in the United States. 

Cigarettes were described as symbols of emancipation and equality with men. The term was first used by psychoanalyst A. A. Brill when describing the natural desire for women to smoke and was used by Edward Bernays to encourage women to smoke in public despite social taboos. The American Tobacco Company began targeting women with its ads for Lucky Strikes. Lucky Strike sought to give women the reasons they should be smoking Luckies. They employed ads featuring prominent women, such as Amelia Earhart, and appealed to the vanity of women by promising slimming effects. Most of the ads also conveyed a carefree and confident image of women that would appeal to the modern woman of the 1920s.

The ads grew more extravagant with paid celebrity testimonials and far-reaching claims of how Lucky Strikes could improve your life. Their most aggressive campaign directly challenged the candy industry by urging women to "reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet". These aggressive campaigns paid off making Lucky Strike the most smoked brand within a decade.

Other companies followed the successful ad campaigns of the American Tobacco Company with their own versions. The Phillip Morris Company introduced Marlboro cigarettes in 1925. Marlboros were advertised as being as "mild as May" and featured elegant ivory tips that appealed to women. Other brands offered similar ads appealing to a woman's sense of beauty and style and made cigarettes an alluring part of many women's lives.

(In view of the tough image of the Marlboro Man, you would probably be surprised at the fact that Marlboro was originally introduced (in 1926) as a woman’s cigarette. The advertising theme for the cigarette was the less than inspiring “mild as May”campaign, and the brand faltered repeatedly for the next 30 years.)

The ads linking vanity and beauty were quite women specific and did exactly what they were supposed to do. Fear of weight gain remains a chief reason women continue to smoke. The ad campaigns successfully promoted cigarettes as a product possessing specific qualities including equality, autonomy, glamour, and beauty.

In 1929 Edward Bernays decided to pay women to smoke their "torches of freedom" as they walked in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York. This was a shock because until that time, women were only permitted to smoke in certain places such as in the privacy of their own homes. He was very careful when picking women to march because, "while they should be good looking, they should not look too model-y"; and he hired his own photographers to make sure that good pictures were taken and then published around the world. Ruth Hale called for women to join in the march saying, "Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!"

The late 1950s and early 1960s brought about a new onslaught of cigarette brands. Each new brand of cigarette introduced during this time advertised its unique benefits. The major new innovation in tobacco marketing was the filtered cigarette. Filters made cigarettes less harsh to smoke and offered the appearance of removing potentially harmful particles. The 1950s began the rebranding of Marlboros from an elite cigarette to an everyman's cigarette and also saw the introduction of strong Marlboro men, such as athletes, and more famously cowboys. This change in Marlboro branding meant Philip Morris was lacking a cigarette aimed at women.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2011/10/marlboro-man.html

 

The 1950's also began a boom in advertising for tobacco companies. Ads featuring prominent movie and television stars became commonplace and tobacco companies also began sponsoring television shows, game shows, and other widespread media. One of the most popular was Philip Morris's sponsorship of the I Love Lucy show. The opener featured the two stars of the show with a giant pack of Philip Morris cigarettes. The show Your Hit Parade was proudly sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike brand.

In 1965, it was reported that 33.9% of women were smoking. Virginia Slims came on the market in 1968, and used the catch phrase "You’ve come a long way baby." This was the first cigarette to be marketed solely as a woman's cigarette. The cigarettes were longer, slimmer, and overall more elegant and feminine. The ads depicted photos of glamorous women set against photos of women doing mundane tasks such as laundry or housework. 1970 saw the release of Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company's entry into women specific cigarettes, Eve. Eve cigarettes were decidedly more feminine than Virginia Slims. Eve featured flowers or other feminine motifs on both the packaging and the cigarette themselves.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=0bgDd0VC&id=452906F06AACFB389744CD1C1C5EB0DB184D264D&thid=OIP.0bgDd0VCjtGxSsz8qFOsMgHaE7&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fflashbak.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2016%2f10%2f1988-VS1.jpg&exph=1583&expw=2375&q=you%27ve+come+a+long+way+baby&simid=608048819821283151&ck=EB92E7759368A5BA6EBE9D28DB8D40BA&selectedIndex=12&FORM=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0

The most tangible result of the suffrage movement, apart from the ability to smoke in public, was the passage of the 19^th amendment on August 18, 1920, which gave women the right to vote. Ironically, though, the first woman elected to office in America was Jeannette Rankin, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on November 7, 1916, two years after her home state of Montana became the first state in the country to allow women to vote.

On the national level, the first woman to be elected to the Senate was Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas, who became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Caraway, born near Bakerville, Tennessee, had been appointed to the Senate two months earlier to fill the vacancy left by her late husband, Thaddeus Horatio Caraway. Caraway was preceded in the Senate by Rebecca Latimer Felton, who was appointed in 1922 to fill a vacancy but never ran for election. 

In 1984, the Democratic Party was trying to defeat Ronald Reagan, a popular incumbent. Their standard bearer that year was Walter Mondale, and he chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in order to capture more of the woman’s vote. Sadly, the Democrats lost in a landslide to Reagan. The only state that Mondale carried was his home state of Minnesota, but he also carried the District of Columbia.

Hillary Clinton was the First Lady to the governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton,, and she later became the First Lady of the country when he became president.

After Bill Clinton finished his second term, Hillary was elected as the first female senator from New York.  She was re-elected in 2006 and chaired the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee from 2003 to 2007. Emboldened by her success, she decided to run for president in 2008, but lost in the primary elections to Barack Obama,, who wisely chose to make her Secretary of State. During her time in that office, she visited more countries than any Secretary of State in history.

Armed with impressive credentials, she decided to run for president again in 2016, and had a 12 point lead in the polls over Donald Trump on October 23,2016. In the end, she beat Trump by 3,000,000 votes, but lost to him in the electoral college. Her book, “What Happened?” summarizes the things that went wrong, but the two main factors were Russian interference, and James Comey’s letter to Congress 11 days before the election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton

On May 17, 1954, in a landmark decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for students of different races to be unconstitutional. The decision dismantled the legal framework for racial segregation in public schools and Jim Crow laws, which limited the rights of African Americans, particularly in the South.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/brown-v-board-of-education.htm

Many states in the south were slow to comply with the new decision. The “Little Rock 9” were the first black students to attend a white school in Little Rock, and Ruby Bridges was the first black student to go to a white school in Louisiana, in 1960.

Bridges and her mother were escorted to school by four federal marshals during the first day that Bridges attended William Frantz Elementary. In the following days of that year, federal marshals continued to escort Bridges, though her mom stayed behind to take care of her younger siblings.

In 1964, she became the subject of a painting by Norman Rockwell, titled “The Problem We All Live With.

 

 

 

The Bridges family suffered for their decision to send her to William Frantz Elementary: her father lost his job as a gas station attendant, the grocery store the family shopped at would no longer let them shop there; her grandparents, who were sharecroppers in Mississippi, were turned off their land; and Abon and Lucille Bridges (her mother and father) separated. Bridges has noted that many others in the community, both black and white, showed support in a variety of ways. Some white families continued to send their children to Frantz despite the protests, a neighbor provided her father with a new job, and local people babysat, watched the house as protectors, and walked behind the federal marshals' car on the trips to school. It was not until Bridges was an adult that she learned that the immaculate clothing she wore to school in those first weeks at Frantz was sent to her family by a relative of Dr. Coles. Bridges says her family could never have afforded the dresses, socks, and shoes that are documented in photographs of her escort by U.S. Marshals to and from the school.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bridges

 

 Trump didn’t win a majority of the women vote in 2016. He received 41%, while 54% of women voted for Hillary Clinton, according to exit poll data conducted by Edison Research. Trump, however, did garner 52% of white women votes. Overall, he won 52% of votes by men and 62% of votes by white men, exit poll data suggests.

 

After Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination, he quickly proclaimed that he would choose a woman as his running mate. Although several of his primary opponents would have been a good choice, he knew that choosing a woman of color would give him a two-fold advantage, so his selection of Kamala Harris was an easy choice – as well as a wise move.

 

After this week, Kamala Harris became the first woman elected to the office of vice president. However, as she proclaimed yesterday evening, she will not be the last.

 

You’ve come a long way, baby.

 

 

 

 

 

500 miles

 

The song is generally credited as being written by Hedy West, and a 1961 copyright is held by Atzal Music, Inc."500 Miles" is West's "most anthologized song." Some recordings have also credited Curly Williams, or John Phillips as co-writers although Phillips admits he had only rearranged it and "didn't deserve the credit". David Neale writes that "500 Miles" may be related to the older folk song "900 Miles" (Roud 4959), which may itself have origins in the southern American fiddle tunes "Reuben's Train" and "Train 45". Johnny Cash is known to have placed "500 Miles" on his list of 100 essential country songs in the early 1970’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/500_Miles

The most commercially successful version of the song was Bobby Bare's in 1963. His version became a Top 10 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, as well as a Top 5 hit on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw57Vvfz57I

Although the song has been covered by a variety of artists, the version I like the best is the one recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary, which was one of the songs on their first album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADN1lLEp3H0

The comments attached to this video, incidentally, will bring a lump to your throat. Here is one example:

“Every time I hear this song I think of my dearest Lynn. I loved you so, baby. I'm taking care of our boy as best as I can but he misses his mommy so much - as I miss you. You are so far away from us in time, now. I long so to hold you again but I have to stay here until he's grown... I will always love you. Always. Thank you for loving me while you were here on Earth.”

I’ve been on a literary journey of my own now for more than 100 years. This article happens to be #500 in a series that now covers more than 60 topics, and has scored more than 300,000 “hits” in over 100 countries.

By coincidence, “500 miles” also takes on a personal significance to me.

When I retired (for the first time), we considered moving to Walla Walla, Washington because it was rated as a good place to retire. However, since it was 1500 miles away from my sister in Los Angeles, and 1500 miles to Sharon’s sisters in Minnesota, we decided that it was not a practical choice. Our second choice became Arizona, and since Kelly wanted to start her nursing program at NAU, Flagstaff became our first retirement home. Ultimately, both of our kids moved to Tucson, which became out next retirement home, in 2015.

In 2016, Kelly married a guy who had always loved Colorado, so it was just a matter of time before the two of them moved to Colorado, which happened in April of this year.

Her new home, Bayfield, Colorado, happens to be 513 miles from our home in Tucson. Meanwhile, my sister lives in Los Angeles, which is 496 miles from our house.

That’s all for now. By the way, if you check the number of words in this story, you’ll find that there are a tad over 500 words.

How’s that for a coincidence?

 

 

Zoom!

 

Zoom was founded by Eric Yuan, a former corporate vice president for Cisco Webex. He left Cisco in April 2011 with 40 engineers to start a new company, originally named Saasbee, Inc. The company had trouble finding investors because many people thought the videotelephony market was already saturated In June 2011, the company raised $3 million of seed money from WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman, and venture capitalists Matt Ocko, TSVC, and Bill Tai.

In May 2012, the company changed its name to Zoom, influenced by Thacher Hurd's children's book Zoom City. In September 2012, Zoom launched a beta version that could host conferences with up to 15 video participants. In November 2012, the company signed Stanford University as its first customer. The service was launched in January 2013 after the company raised a $6 million Series A round from Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, WebEx founder Subrah Iyar, and former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman. Zoom launched version 1.0 of the program allowing the maximum number of participants per conference to be 25. By the end of its first month, Zoom had 400,000 users and by May 2013 it had 1 million users.

On April 18, 2019, the company became a public company via an initial public offering. After pricing at US$36 per share, the share price increased over 72% on the first day of trading. The company was valued at US$16 billion by the end of its first day of trading. Prior to the IPO, Dropbox invested $5 million in Zoom.

Yuan is the son of geology engineers. He was born and raised in Tai'an, Shandong Province, China. In 4th grade, Yuan collected construction scraps to recycle copper for cash.

 In 2019, Zoom became a public company via an initial public offering at which time Yuan became a billionaire. His wealth has increased during COVID-19 pandemic, as Zoom has benefited from the shift to online work and teaching. On September 1, 2020, Yuan's net worth was estimated to be US$16.4 billion, a figure 360% higher than his net worth at the beginning of the year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Video_Communications

 Brian and I are both substitute teachers, and we have been monitoring classes remotely (via Zoom) since the school year finally started sometime in October.

COVID19 has caused dramatic changes in our society, since millions of people now have the ability to safely work from home. Our niece in Atlanta is a psychologist, and the vast majority of her clients are in Los Angeles.

The sports world is a lot different than it used to be.

NASCAR started its season later than normal, with NO fans in the stands. Professional horse racing also had a delayed start, which caused a major shuffling in the dates for “the big three” events of the Triple Crown.

Traditionally, the Masters golf tournament is held in April, but this year, it was held in November.

Eating in restaurants virtually stopped in April, but is now available in most states, but with “social distancing” seating.

The vast majority of churches have stopped having indoor service, and weddings are a lot different than they used to be.

A wedding reception held in Maine in early August led to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 50 people and resulted in one death, according to health officials in the northeastern state.

The Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it had launched an investigation into the August 7 event last Monday, after 24 individuals who had attended the wedding reception at the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket tested positive for COVID-19. On Saturday, health officials said that 53 infections have now been linked to the event and one person has died, Maine's The Portland Press Herald reported. 

 

https://www.newsweek.com/wedding-reception-leads-53-coronavirus-infections-1-death-1527006

Tomorrow, our son and his fiancé will be tying the knot, and the likely venue will be at one of the botanical gardens in town, and it will be an outside event. The presiding official won’t be in the same location, and the entire wedding will take place on Zoom.

To quote Bob Dylan, the times they are changing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats6eE